Lockerbie terror bomber's conviction thrown into doubt

FRESH doubts have been raised over the conviction of the Lockerbie bomber after the reliability of a key witness was called into question.

There are concerns about the evidence of prosecution witness Alan Feraday, who testified during the trial of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.

It has emerged that three men who the forensic scientist also gave evidence against have since had their convictions quashed.

Papers about Mr Feraday's evidence have now been sent to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which was investigating Megrahi's conviction.

A total of 270 people died when the American passenger jet Pam Am 103 exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988.

In 2001, judges at a special court at Camp Zeist in Holland found Megrahi, 52, guilty of murder. His co-accused, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was cleared.

An appeal made later by Megrahi was refused.

During the trial, Mr Feraday, who is now said to have retired after 42 years experience in explosives, told the judges that he was in no doubt that a circuit board fragment found after the disaster was part of the detonator. The trial judges accepted his conclusion.

However, in three separate cases, men against whom Mr Feraday gave evidence have now had their convictions overturned, the latest last month.

The commission will now consider whether the Lockerbie trial judges should have given so much weight to Mr Feraday's evidence.

Solicitor Eddie McKechnie, who represented Megrahi at the Lockerbie trial, said that it provoked "serious issues" about the conviction.

He said: "It is a factor that I take very seriously into account on behalf of Mr Megrahi.

He added: "One would have thought that when a professional and a government forensic expert is impugned in a number of cases, then serious issues arise."

Dr Jim Swire, who led the campaign for justice after losing his daughter Flora in the bombing, said the revelation "undermines one's confidence" in Megrahi's life sentence.

He said: "I'm personally not satisfied of Mr Megrahi's guilt.

"I emerged [from the trial] riddled with doubts.

"This will of course augment them."

He added: "If one finds that three cases have been overturned, it rather undermines one's confidence."

Former Libyan secret agent Megrahi is serving a 27-year sentence for the bombing.

Passing sentence, Lord Sutherland said it would have been longer but for the fact that the Libyan was in a foreign country and was held virtually in solitary confinement.

The Crown is appealing against what it believes is an "unduly lenient" prison term.

Megrahi was originally housed in a specially-built 250,000 Barlinnie suite, dubbed "Gaddafi's Caf" where he had little contact with his fellow inmates for fear of reprisals.

But earlier this year, it emerged he had been transferred to a standard cell in Greenock Prison.

Insurers for former US airline Pan Am have also gone to court in an attempt to sue Megrahi.

Pan Am lost 282 million and went out of business as a result of the atrocity. Megrahi has denied liability.

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

Edinburgh Evening News provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at Edinburgh Evening News regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website Edinburgh Evening News requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.